Starting Point - Eugene O'neill's Early One-act Play Exploring

Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (1888-1953) was the founding father of the great American drama, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for drama four times; ("Beyond the Horizon"1920,"Anna Christie"1922,"Strange Interlude"1927 &"Long Day's Journey into Night"1957), and in 1936 the recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature. He was not only the first creator of American serious drama, he was also their first great playwright, and his plays were full of different dramatic styles. In China, many researchers have traditionally focussed on the more famous dramas of O'Neill, however, in 2006, Mr. Guo Ji De compiled and published a large collection of 44 of his dramatic plays including his 17 early one-act plays.This graduation thesis researches three sections;"Main Theme","Dramatic Structure"&"Dramatic Expression", which are cross-referenced from translated scripts of O'Neill's early one-act plays, compared with his intermediate and later stage works, then finally as a conclusion, to examine his 17 early one-act plays as the impetus and starting point for all his whole career.This thesis will try to give reference for studying Eugene Gladstone O'Neill's dramatic works and cast illumination on some of his writing techniques.